


you are my sunshine

by somethingfullofangst (sram)



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Dating, Functional Family, M/M, Neighbors, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:53:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23410507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sram/pseuds/somethingfullofangst
Summary: Changkyun's never actually been in love before.Sure he's loved, he's felt loved, all of that but... It isn't until he meets Hoseok that he realizes that genuine affection between both parties is food for the soul.
Relationships: Im Changkyun | I.M/Lee Hoseok | Wonho
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	you are my sunshine

Love Thy Neighbor

Judging people

We’re all guilty of it, yes, that’s right; all of us. Some people get paid to do it in front of loud energetic crowds, some people do it quietly in the safety of their homes behind thick glass screens with connections to the outside world. 

Most people will deny that they do. 

Shake their heads in shame and cry out that it is wrong, but catch themselves lost in thought about the condition of someone else’s jeans, their hair, their face, teeth, skin. Everything is nothing. Nothing is everything. 

We’re all guilty of it, judging books only by their covers because that’s all we will ever want to know. Taking one look at a person on the surface, instead of focusing on the dark shadow that follows closely behind.

Changkyun is admittedly very bad at it. Judging people. He takes one look at his snazzily dressed new neighbor and immediately thinks “This guy is gonna be a snobby asshole, I know it,” and from that moment on he attempts avoiding this man like the plague, this seemingly very innocent friendly guy that gets along with all of the other occupants in the building just fine. 

In fact Changkyun’s mother gushes when she comes over one evening, her grin is frighteningly stretching the muscles of those chubby cheeks and half-burying her eyes in a grave of plump skin. “Changkyunnie, your new neighbor is-” she sings off key, “Too hot. Hot damn. Come on, you have to sing it with me? It’s not fun if you don’t. He gave me some cookies he'd just bought from a girl scout, said he's diabetic.” 

“Yeah ma, he's pretty cute.” he agrees absently, in part due to wanting her to stop singing, but also because she isn’t wrong. Changkyun overheard his name in passing when the mail lady was delivering a package and he immediately jogged across the floor in the hallway so that he could google it.

Keywords mainly included: “Hot celebrities named Hoseok” or “Hot Korean men named Hoseok.” The results were quite satisfactory. But without a last name he was really just guesstimating.

It isn't until one day when he's working one of those odd jobs for quick cash that he finds on an app called Mule does he finally meet Hoseok. It was as he’d been leaving school when the job came in, and with three dollar signs next to the description he was already sold before he even checked to see what it was. 

It wasn’t until he realized the GPS was leading him to his own apartment building that it dawned on him, it would be so exciting to see one of his neighbors houses for a change, and oh what’s this? Apartment 3105 is literally next door to his. And who lives next door?

“Um, HI.” Changkyun says just too loud and excitedly that it makes his own head hurt in embarrassment. Hoseok doesn’t seem bothered by this, in fact he barely even acknowledges Changkyun when he sleepily pushes the door open and invites him inside.

The apartment is dim, there is a single lamp on in a corner of the living room that gives off a dusty orange glow and had it not been for that Changkyun would’ve never seen the mountains of books stacked awkwardly along the wall in rows. Some big books, some smaller, one section of the wall is just a bunch of toppled over works that look like they used to be important if not for the gray sheet of dust covering them.

“You’re the mule?” Hoseok’s voice comes from behind him and startles him so bad that he drops his phone in the midst of trying to look at the job description for the first time.

“Shit- ah, yes, that’s me. You were, um?” he fumbles with the screen until it turns on and then hastily reads over it, but because he’s unsure of what he’s reading he goes over it again. “Oh you need an escort- a… A date.”

“Yeah. The pay is pretty good, and you… While you’re not what I was expecting, I like upsetting my family a lot more than I care for tradition. I should’ve known Changkyun wasn’t a girl’s name, but don’t really care at this point.” Hoseok’s voice is a little squeaky and he’s wearing only a pair of blue jeans with rips in the knees, but Changkyun thinks mostly to himself that it’s a sight he hopes he never forgets. 

Hoseok is nicely toned with this sort of perfect V waistline Changkyun ashamedly lets his eyes wander too many times to be comfortably shrugging his shoulder and saying in the highest most embarrassing pitch, “I didn’t really look at the list before I accepted it, you want me to go? I mean you can always relist it.”

“No,” Hoseok says firmly, leaning with his back against the cold wooden door. “You’re here now, there’s no more time to waste waiting for someone else to show up.”

“I’m not exactly dressed to meet anybody’s family, not even my own.” Changkyun tugs on the soft stitching of his jogger pants and then as a way to cover up all of the staring he’s been doing he motions to Hoseok’s pants as well, “You’re not even wearing a shirt, and those pants-”

“Does it matter? You’re getting paid just to be there, and I really don’t care what you’re wearing, but I’ll change. We can leave in like… Five minutes.” Hoseok breezes past him to what he should already know is the bedroom since they have the exact same layout, but still he peers into the blank room where there is significantly more light from open curtains.

The bed is messed up, a pile of clothes and pillows strewn across it. But otherwise the room lacks any other visible furniture.

The nerves hit him hard like midday waves crashing into the shore. Kihyun’s mocking voice comes to mind with his favorite phrase he loves to use whenever Changkyun fucks up in a way that could have easily been avoided, “Reading is fundamental.”

Just as Changkyun settles down onto the couch Hoseok reemerges with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and his hair pushed away from his eyes. The only thing different is he's wearing a shirt, even his socks are mismatched. 

Changkyun can’t help but feel the whole bad boy vibe coming from this dude, and though he is incredibly enamored by his beauty he half expects to step outside and find a massive motorcycle waiting for them. 

Maybe he’ll help Hoseok into a thick leather jacket and they’ll go to a seedy area of town where they kill a guy by smashing a beer bottle over his head or something.

Hoseok reaches his hand out, slicked and sticky from the use of hair gel. “I'm Hoseok by the way. You don't have to tell me your name though.”

Changkyun pulls his hand away and wipes it on his jeans. “It's Changkyun. And I'm sorry about not being the girl of your dreams."

“Girl?” Hoseok's brows raise like this is the first time he's ever heard of the opposite gender existing on Earth, but they say nothing else about it

*

Does everyone remember that whole part about judging people and stuff? Changkyun got to ride in his first Uber, he doesn't trust ride sharing apps because he saw on the news (once many months ago) that drivers commit questionable actions to their riders all of the time, so he reasonably thought bad things and avoided ride-sharing altogether. Their driver was a lovely older graying woman who immediately asked them how long they’d been together because they looked so lovely exiting the apartment. 

“About thirty minutes.” Hoseok answers smoothly, the real meaning of the question going over his sweet naive head. She doesn't push it. She just smiles into the rearview mirror and continues driving, though she turns up an old song on the radio and hums along to it. Changkyun blushes and looks out of the window for the rest of the ride. 

Instead of a seedy area of town Changkyun immediately notices the Upper Springs neighborhood when they enter it. The friend he mentioned earlier, Kihyun, lives around here with his grandparents, and Changkyun has visited more than once. They're like family to him. Family that doesn't mind when he spends the night and gradually let's it flow into a week because his wifi is off at home and he doesn't wanna go back. 

It’s a quiet suburbia and the houses are all white and yellows and nothing stands out too drastically. Picket fences, tire swings, pools in every backyard- it’s the dream. The larger houses look pretty much like big family style homes, but nothing here is too out of the ordinary, nothing is too snobby. It's an expensive neighborhood sure, but It's certainly not the land of the rich. Everything belongs here, everyone fits in. 

Except Hoseok. Somehow he belongs somewhere else.

So it’s no wonder when they stand outside of the pristine white house Hoseok falters, he reaches for the knob but stands there like he doesn’t think highly of the idea of just opening it. His internal battle ends when the door flies open and on the other side a man not much older than him flings his arms around his neck and embraces him so tight Changkun winces. 

“Hoseok! You actually came!" the man's voice is pitched and melodic, Changkyun feels his heart slip from his ribcage like liquid right into this man's hands just from the sound. “I thought you were gonna make an excuse, like work came up or you already had plans.” 

Hoseok wraps his arms instinctively around the man’s waist and lifts him slightly in the hug. Effortlessly. Changkyun gets chills. Call him a weirdo if you must but it's been a long time since literally any man has lifted him in any way and the sight is a little overwhelming. 

When their embrace breaks apart, the man turns to Changkyun and pulls him into a hug that lasts a lot shorter and is mostly just a quick pat on the back. He smells nice, but Changkyun is taken aback and can't register the familiar scent in his memory so he just stands there blinking in surprise. 

“I'm Minhyuk. We're cousins." he clarifies by motioning between the little bit of space where Hoseok is still standing with his arms outstretched where Minhyuk's body was just clinging to him moments before. “I'm glad you came… Friend of Hoseok?” 

Without putting any thought into it, Hoseok mumbles that Changkyun is “A date" and trudges past Minhyuk into the house, leaving Changkyun to stand there awkwardly tripping over his tongue trying to explain his piece. 

“Um actually, well, yes we're- this is a date. But Hoseok he… I mean wow why would he just leave me trying to explain something like this, shit.”

Minhyuk's eyes turn into little slits when he smiles and he pulls Changkyun into the breezy pumpkin scented house. “Well whatever you guys are I'm just happy that he's been getting out of the house again. Didn't he just move? Um an apartment somewhere in Midtown?”

Changkyun kicks his shoes off next to Hoseok's and shrugs his shoulders, “We're neighbors. Honestly if he wasn’t living next door to me I'd like him a lot more.”

"Neighbors." Minhyuk sighs dreamily, since the rest of the sentence meant nothing at all to him. “Hoseok truly is a romantic like that isn't he? Did he ask you out? Did you ask him? How long has it been?”

Changkyun laughs uneasily, eyes darting around trying to take note of every family portrait on the wall, every nicknack on the table at the entrance. “Well I guess you could say he asked me-”

Hoseok peeks around the corner of the wall, only his nose and eyes visible from his position, brows deeply furrowed until they're almost forming a V. “Changkyun please come here. There's something wrong with my phone and I don't know how to fix it… Please?”

Changkyun bows in apology to Minhyuk and scurries over to Hoseok, trying to hide the embarrassing Eevee socks on his feet. “Why would I know anything about phones? You know I'm in school to be a pastry-” Hoseok shoves his phone in Changkyun's face, and the proximity makes him see stars momentarily, until he pushes it away and sees the listing from Mule. 

One of the outlined conditions in the listing is to not talk. Changkyun guesses it would work a lot better if he was a pretty girl who could woo her way into his family even without talking much, but the ugly truth is that he looks like he hasn't slept in eight weeks because he probably doesn't have a home to return to, that is to say more like he's a charity case to Hoseok than a date. 

A short woman who easily touches Changkyun chest as she enters, breezes by and throws Hoseok into one of those awkward short people hugs, where she's standing on her tiptoes but still isn't tall enough. “I can't believe you came! And you're alive!"

“Yes mother." Hoseok looks over her head at the clock on the wall, ticking away the seconds like it's the most miserable hug he's ever had. She pulls away and pouts, slapping his cheek slightly. 

“Why do you hate me so much? We used to be homies."

Changkyun feels out of place when he laughs, like he's witnessing a secret that nobody should know, a secret he will be able to take to the grave because the way Hoseok just snapped his neck to glare at him obviously means trouble. 

Hoseok's mother releases him and let's her attention fall on Changkyun instead. She scoffs roughly it's like a dry coughing sound mixed with the sound people make when they gargle salt. “This is your so called date? I was expecting…”

“A girl?" Changkyun tries, then he shoots these little finger guns because the agreement on the mule app only lasts an hour and if he manages to survive this without being murdered by Hoseok's gaze then he'll be slightly richer for the night.

"Girl?" She scoffs again and then smooths the collarless collar of Hoseok V-neck shirt. “He looks like an orphan. You have the same tastes as your cousin; horrifying.”

Minhyuk rounds the corner into the little room and gasps. “He does not, This thing is cute, but have you seen my fiance?” Changkyun feels himself retreat into his socially awkward crust after being referred to as a 'thing’

"We all have." she replies quickly, and then she steps away from Hoseok so that she can put her hands on her round hips, and sighs. “Just wanted grandkids, that's literally all. Now you both have to adopt one”

Hoseok shrugs his shoulders, and with the first and only toothy grin Changkyun will ever see him make (at least for the remainder of the event) he nods his head eagerly in agreement. “Yeah." he says gently, then he wraps an arm around Changkyun's shoulders and pulls him flat against his body. “We can definitely adopt one."

I only want to adopt puppies. But Changkyun doesn't get the chance to say that. 

*

It doesn't take long for the house to fill with unfamiliar faces. Everyone brings someone else, a lover or a child or even just a good family friend. Hoseok is dutiful and introduces Changkyun to each and every one of them before they even get the chance to ask about him. At one point they're even holding hands as they go from face to face. 

Hoseok's a natural at this. His smiles are breezy and quick and his introductions are to the point. The first one catches Changkyun completely off guard, the way Hoseok easily transitioned from "This is Changkyun," straight to: "This is my boyfriend, Changkyun."

It kind of leaves him breathless. 

It kind of leaves him wanting to hear it more.

**Author's Note:**

> since we're all quarantined together I decided let's write something! if anybody even cares about me anymore lolz.


End file.
